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 Arnott had become well known many years earlier in connection with the invention of a smokeless grate, known as 'Arnott's Stove,' which combined economy of fuel and consumption of the smoke with uniformity of combustion. For this he was awarded the Rumford medal of the Royal Society in 1854. He devised the water-bed in 1832, and in 1838 he published an important essay on 'Warming and Ventilation,' in which both his stove and ventilator are fully described. He declined to patent any of his inventions, and was never more happy than when he could devise or apply any means of lessening human suffering, or extending man's dominion over nature. For his various inventions he was awarded a gold medal by the jurors of the Paris Exhibition of 1855, and Napoleon III. gave him the cross of the Legion of Honour. He was one of the founders of the university of London in 1836, and an original member of the senate. In the following year he was appointed one of the physicians extraordinary to the queen; in 1838 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1854 a member of the Medical Council. In 1861, he published a 'Survey of Human Progress,' which reached a second edition in 1862. It was well received, though criticised as representing a 'narrow utilitarianism.' In 1867 he wrote a small tract on arithmetic, and in 1870 a pamphlet on national education.

To a great age Dr. Arnott retained clear faculties, and his old spirit of inventiveness never forsook him. Among his last devices was a chair-bed for preventing sea-sickness. Having a large circle of scientific friends, and being a prominent member of the Royal Institution, he lived much in the society of the most progressive men of science in London. His benefactions were widely spread. In 1869 he gave 2,000l. to the university of London, and 1,000l. to the universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrews. In 1865 Mrs, Arnott gave 1,000l. to each of two ladies' colleges in London, and after her husband's death carried out his wishes by giving 1,000l. to each of the four Scotch universities.

In 1859 he caught cold, which brought on a deafness, gradually increasing, and ultimately limiting greatly his sociable habits. A fall in 1871 produced a concussion of the brain and weakened his mind. He died 22 March 1874, and was buried in Edinburgh. His wife, whom he married in 1856, survived him two years. She was the widow of one of his oldest friends, Mr. Knight, and the daughter of Mr. G. H. Holley, of Blickling, in Norfolk.

Dr. Arnott was physically a very strong man. He was perfectly sound in health, and for more than sixty years he lived in the heart of London, and rarely sought or required a holiday. In many manual exercises, such as handicraft and games, drawing, and playing upon musical instruments, he excelled. He possessed a great aptitude for languages — wrote English elegantly, and gave fluent speech to Italian, Spanish, and French. When his 'Physics' was translated into German, he began the study of that language. His intellect was very versatile. It widely embraced both languages and science. As an inventor he possessed many resources. He was a very sociable man, was extremely amiable, and always full of philanthropic aims and objects. There is a crayon drawing of Arnott by Mrs. W. Carpenter in the Royal Society, and a portrait by Partridge in Marischal College, Aberdeen.

[Obituary notice of Dr. Neil Arnott, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xxv. 1877; Bain's Biographical Memoir of Dr. Neil Arnott, read before the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 1881.]  ARNOUL or ARNULF. [See Ernulf (DNB00).]  ARNWAY, JOHN (1601–1653), royalist divine, was of a Shropshire family and heir to a considerable estate. He was a commoner of St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, and in 1635 rector of Hodnet and Ightfield. (For difficulties connected with these appointments see State Papers, Dom. 1634-5.) His abounding charity and devoted loyalty were conspicuous. When he repaired to the king at Oxford in 1642, the parliament garrison at Wem plundered his house so completely that (according to his own account) they left him neither bible, nor money, nor clothes. He was promoted to be archdeacon of Lichfield and Coventry and prebendary of Woolvey. Resuming his activity in the royal service, his estate was sequestrated and he imprisoned till after the king's death. He was then exiled, and took refuge at the Hague, where (in 1650) he published two pamphlets, (1) the 'Tablet,' a vindication of the king against Milton's 'Eikonoclastes,' and (2) 'An Alarum to the Subjects of England,' an account of the oppressions which he and others had suffered. He was compelled by poverty to accept an invitation to exercise his function among the English in Virginia, where he died, it is supposed in 1653. Both his tracts were reprinted in 1661 by William Rider of Merton College.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 307: Fasti, i. 397, 415.]  ARRAN,. [See and ]